


Futile Devices

by misszeldasayre



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drama, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Musicians, Piano, Pining, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:21:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22832479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misszeldasayre/pseuds/misszeldasayre
Summary: When piano teacher Kylo Ren runs into Rey at his local music shop, he knows her talent must be cultivated. Who better to teach her than himself?
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 40
Kudos: 48
Collections: For one is both and both are one in love: The Reylo Fanfiction Anthology's Valentine's Day Exchange, Ijustfellintothissendhelp





	1. The Starfighter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheStolenQuill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheStolenQuill/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At his local music store, Kylo Ren bumps into a mysterious girl.

The sight of his old name splashed across the cover makes Kylo Ren cringe. Red, bold letters streak across a photo of him from a few years ago, his hair pulled back in a ponytail that begs to be lopped off. The shame of such a photo, of such books, threatens to light his limbs on fire. A quick scan of Music, First Order shows that the manager has his back turned, so Kylo picks up the stack of his songbooks, cramming them at the back of the bin behind a compilation of Rachmaninoff’s preludes before the manager looks up at the jingle of the bell.

At the sound, Kylo buries his head in the shelves, pretending to search for a piece of music. Out of the corner of his eye, he watches a young woman enter the shop. Dressed in a tan uniform with a name tag too far away for Kylo to read, she offers a smile at the manager. His red head bobs up from the front desk at the sight of a potential customer. His shark grin spreads uncomfortably wide across his pinched face, and Kylo grits his teeth in disgust.

He’s watched Hux smarm his way through transactions for two years now, upselling young families searching for starter instruments and overcharging old ladies for tuneups. Kylo has to admit, the manager does know his way around pianos. Too bad he’s not familiar with the concept of integrity.

The newcomer weaves her way between the pianos laid out at the front of the shop, settling at a sleek grand piano with a green velvet bench and a top propped open. Running a hand along the edge of the case, her fingers hesitate as they reach the keys.

“Excellent choice,” the manager purrs, approaching her. “Top of the line, with a new model launching in fall.”

“I know,” the woman says with a twinge of regret.

“This model is favored by many professionals. The late master pianist Yo Yo Da preferred to play every concert on a Starfighter. He claimed there was no piano more receptive to its players’ emotions.”

“It’s beautiful.” Her reverence gives Kylo pause.

“My name is Hux,” the manager says, reaching for her. The girl’s mouth wrinkles, but she lets him grab her hand and shake it limply. “I’ll be happy to assist you.”

She shakes her head amiably. “I’m… just looking.”

At these words, Kylo watches Hux’s demeanor shift from friendly to downright frigid. “Oh.” The manager draws the syllable out into a six-second condemnation. “Just looking. Well, try to keep your grease off the keys. I don’t want to have to polish the piano again before another customer arrives.”

The heels of his boots click together as Hux spins from the girl, glowers at Kylo examining the exchange from the corner, and returns to his desk. Kylo glances back at the girl. Her cheeks blossoms red, her jaw tight. Eyebrows knitted tight together, she takes a few steps away from the piano as if to march after Hux.

Then her eyes connect with Kylo, and he’s alarmed by the shame spreading across her cheeks. Her shoulders slump, and she drops his gaze, shifting the pack slung over her shoulder. One last wistful peek at the piano, and she begins to trudge towards the door.

Kylo finds his feet carrying himself across the worn carpet to the girl. “You haven’t tried the piano.”

When she turns to face him, her eyes are hard. “I…”

“How will you know what you want if you don’t try it?” His earnestness surprises him. He’s not a smiler like her, but he hopes she understands what he’s asking her to do.

Her eyes stay steely, the corners of her mouth curve. “Perhaps you’re right.” She follows him back to the Starfighter, but at his sweeping gesture, refuses to sit. So he pulls back the green velvet bench and slips onto it, his feet finding the pedals like long-lost lovers.

“Allow me.” The keys welcome his fingers back by bending under their pressure. An étude he hasn’t practiced for kriff knows how long jumps to mind. The strains of Bartók spill from the grand piano’s open top and flow throughout the shop.

He notices Hux peering up from his desk, watching the performance with shrewd amusement. Repressing a scowl, Kylo abruptly stops the song mid-measure. He looks from the manager to the girl at his side.

“You play?” she asks.

“Yes.” He smashes a few keys, standing as the notes fade into oblivion. “Do you?”

She shakes her head, but lifts a hand to the keyboard. Dirt has burrowed underneath her fingernails and there’s a hint of grease streaked across her forearm, but she moves with unexpected grace.

Arching her wrists, she plays the first few notes of a melody that Kylo’s sure he’s heard somewhere, before stumbling on the wrong key and grimacing at the sound. “Sorry.” Her pinkie finger hovers prior to selecting an alternative. The melody resumes, shaky and simple, but altogether hypnotic.

As she slowly navigates her way around the piano, Kylo reads her name tag. “Rey.”

Her head bent over the keys, she doesn’t look up. “That’s me. And you are—?”

“Kylo. Kylo Ren.” The name feels easier in his mouth each time he says it, yet he still catches a snort from the desk.

Rey’s absentminded nod reminds him that she’s galaxies away in thought. Another wrong note, and she huffs impatiently.

“Here.” He can’t help himself; the note she’s hunting for is just out of reach. His index finger taps lightly on the correct key.

She presses her finger in the shadows of his hand. “There it is!” Her exultant grin sings gleefully.

“You know” —he hates the waver in his voice— “I could show a few things if you want.” When she doesn’t respond immediately, he forges on. “I teach piano.”

Another snort from the desk counter reminds Kylo that they have a spectator. But Rey remains oblivious to Hux. Although, when Kylo notes her shoulders tensing at the snort, he wonders if she’s simply choosing to ignore him.

“Really? That would be wonderful!” She cocks her head, biting her lip before her face falls. “How much do you charge?”

He eyes her uniform, ragged tennis shoes, and unkempt buns. “It wouldn’t be a problem.”

It’s like dangling a sweet-sand cookie in front of her, the way desire glows from every breath she expels. “I couldn’t—”

“It’s no trouble.”

“I’d love to learn, but if you’re teaching, I’m paying.”

“Fine.” Kylo’s chest relaxes, and he fights to keep his face straight. “When do you want to start? I’m free tonight.”

“Let me check my schedule.” Her smile falls as she pulls her phone from the side pocket of her satchel. “I-I gotta go! I’m gonna be late for work.”

Before she can leave, Kylo swipes her phone from her grasp, punching in his number. “Call me.”

The door to Music, First Order swings closed as she walks away. Kylo returns to the sheet music bins, and Hux is left choking on his disdain.

* * *

She doesn’t call him until the third day after they’ve met, and until his phone rings, Kylo is an irritable wreck. Replaying their encounter over and over, he curses himself for not asking for her number. For all he knows, she’ll never contact him. She seemed hesitant enough even after agreeing to lessons.

And what does Kylo care? He’s busy teaching lessons, doesn’t need to add another student to his roster. But those brown eyes—those wistful fingers—won’t leave his mind.

His Thursday students arrive, then his Friday students. Then it’s Saturday and he’s left alone at his piano. His nails bitten ragged, his hair an over-combed mess, he can barely force himself to play. When he does sit down to try, his fingers move dully through the motions. They’re somewhere else, thinking of another pair of hands speckled in grease. He finds himself dusting off his metronome and pulling out old primers, relics from a time far, far away. Inside the old books, Kylo takes a Sharpie to each inscription until there’s nothing left but a thick black smudge where his old name used to be.

The chirp draws him from his reverie; he bolts to the kitchen to answer his phone, upending the piano bench in his wake. A tentative hello greets him, and the sting from his nail beds subsides.

He suggests they meet that day. “I’m working late tonight,” she explains, countering with an offer for Sunday afternoon. After hanging up the phone, the music flows easy through Kylo’s arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for another excellent prompt and happy Valentine's!


	2. The Lesson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their first piano lesson leaves Kylo eager for another.

“A TIE Silencer?” Rey exclaims upon entering Kylo’s solar and spotting the grand piano engulfing a good fourth of the room. “This costs double my monthly rent. How did you…?”

“A gift,” he says, then kicks himself in the silence that follows. He busies himself with sifting through the stack of primers he pulled in anticipation of her arrival. In his periphery, she runs a finger along the gleaming arm of the piano. It gleams in the sun streaming from every window bordering the whitewashed ceiling; he polished it twice as soon as they had set the appointment. When he turns to watch her worship, its ebony wood catches their faces, twisting their admiration and flinging it back gleefully. Their reflections’ eyes meet, easier than turning to each other, and Kylo can’t help but return the grin that Reflection-Rey so freely gives. Her hand still rests on the grand’s arm, nails short and scrubbed free of grease. He wonders how her callouses might catch along his cheek.

He hesitates to break her reverie. “Ready?”

With visible effort, she drags herself from admiring the case to sit on the bench. “The first time I saw one of these, I felt something.”

“I felt something, too,” he admits, folding open the piano’s top and propping it up.

“Whenever I play, I feel it again. Do you?”

He’d deny it if anyone else asked, but for this new student he nods, dropping into the chair next to her bench. She looks up expectantly. Something in his chest warms in her tractor beam stare. “Play me what you know.”

She pauses, closing her eyes as if to summon up something from the bottom of her soul. There it is again: the simple melody from Music, First Order winding itself around the legs of the Silencer. Simple, one-handed, but it tugs at the back of his throat. As she plays, he notes her uneven rhythm, her arched hands.

Once the song trails off, she shrugs under his steady gaze. “I don’t remember the rest.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not. But thank you.”

After weeks of instructing grade school children desperate to earn stickers from the stash under the bench, Kylo marvels at her easy grace. 

“Drop your hands.” He models with his own. “Play like that for a long time and you’re more susceptible to carpal tunnel.” For a second, he’s not staring at his new student. His father, hands bent, wavers before him. The vision disappears in an instant.

Rey follows his movements easily. “Like this?” He notes the new curve of her wrist, the adjusted spread of her palm. He looks for too long. But as her teacher, it’s his job to notice.

“Perfect.” He does not lie. “Where did you hear that song?”

“A long time ago.” “I have this memory of a guitar, almost like a lullaby… My parents were musicians, I think.” When she trails off and realizes that she’s frowning, she laughs at herself, a giddy, apologetic thing that compels Kylo to join her. His laugh comes stiff, awkward, more of a bark than a laugh—still, it feels good.

“What else can you play?”

“The right hand part of a few songs. The C scale.”

“Can you read music?”

“Never learned.” That grin again. “But I’m a fast learner.”

Flipping open a beginner’s songbook, Kylo points to a scale. He plays it for her by memory. Without glancing at the sheet music, Rey’s slender hands dance across the same scale, transposed two octaves up. He plays another scale; she repeats it after examining his performance. No hesitation.

He pauses, feeling the weight of her gaze as she tries to pick apart his face, an inscrutable mask. His fingers kiss a few keys without depressing them. A few strokes, and he has it. “Play your song,” he commands.

When she strikes up the melody, his left hand joins in with a simple bass clef rhythm to complement hers. She stiffens, startled, but keeps playing. Their shoulders bump as she leans in. Kylo’s thumb nearly misses its mark like a student attempting his first arpeggio. The exertion required to execute a simple harmony is negligible, but as the song draws to a close he’s sweating like he just wrestled Schumann’s toccata and won.

“Kylo! How did you do that?” Her grin is expected; the touch of his arm accompanying it shocks Kylo into silence.

All he can muster is a choked, “Try it,” buying himself time to rediscover his composure.

As Rey introduces her left hand up to the keyboard, Kylo worries that some of her fluidity might disappear. But she manages to sync it effortlessly to her right hand. The rhythms she attempts aren’t complicated, but her grace is unexpected. It appears as if she’s had prior training, and yet—

Her uncertainty surprises him. She makes no attempts to show off for him. She does not introduce the pedals, or take her eyes off her hands. But she hits every note, old and new.

“You’ve got a great ear and you’re observant,” he says when they plunge into quiet again. She reddens at the assessment. “Let’s work on your sight-reading and music theory.”

“Next week?”

“Next week,” he agrees reluctantly, noting the orange sunset reflecting off of the piano. Expecting her to balk at the workload, he hands her a beginner’s book with thick notes printed big enough for him to read halfway across the practice room. After flipping through the first few pages, she reaches over him to grab a second sheet—a sonata, much too advanced for someone who can’t sightread.

Kylo holds up a cautionary hand, tapping the sheet music in her grasp. “You won’t be ready for this by next week.”

“I think I can handle it myself,” she snaps, reverently packaging both the beginner workbook and the sonata in her satchel.

What’s he to say to that? She sweeps back the tendrils of hair escaping her buns and sweeps out of the music room, only to linger in the hall.

“Next week?” she asks again.

“I may have an opening on Tuesday.” A lie, but he’ll free up that afternoon to see her sooner.

Her fingers nonchalantly weave around the strap of her satchel, but the bounce in the balls of her feet belies her excitement. “I get off at six.”

* * *

Rey’s stomach growls again, just as she approaches the climax of the piece. She thumps the keys in frustration. “Maybe six wasn’t a great idea. On the day I forgot to pack a lunch, too.”

“You haven’t eaten since breakfast.” A statement, not a question, but Rey nods anyway.

“There’s time after our lesson.”

Kylo’s on his feet—skin prickling at her choice of possessive—halfway to the fridge before Rey catches him with a shout. “It’s alright, really!” Her protest does nothing to dissuade him from plumbing the depths of his fridge.

“Ravioli or leftover chicken stir fry—your choice.”

“I can wait—”

“I can’t. Ravioli or stir fry?”

“Ravioli, please… if it’s not too much trouble.” She stumbles over her apologies, repeats them like a rosary until Kylo hands her a bowl and fork and tells her to eat. Her mouth full, a companionable silence descends over the kitchen, almost enough to pretend that they’re eating a proper meal and that she’s a proper guest.

Predictably, Rey fights him over the dishes. When she wraps a hand around his bicep to forcibly drag him from the sink, he catches himself leaning into her touch and backpedals to the safety of his music solar. As he waits, he plays the first page of a composition so old he can’t remember writing it. Then another page, and by the time she wanders in, wiping her hands on her pants, he’s at the final measures: fast, staccato barbs thrown by both hands, leaving him caught in the crossfire.

A smattering of applause does nothing to disguise the wrinkle in her nose. “You didn’t like it,” he guesses.

“No,” she says, crooking her head to one side. “You played it flawlessly. The notes just… fought you every step of the way. Doesn’t it get tiring, all that fighting?”

He can’t shake the sounds: a shattering bottle, a slamming door, and a boy seeking solace in the only instrument loud enough to drown out the arguments. “Yes, it did.”


	3. The Composition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They find a rhythm that Kylo embraces with uncustomary ease.

One late September afternoon, a thundering at his door draws him from the warmth of his shower. He answers the door with only a towel slung around his waist. Rey peers back at him, hand raised to knock again. Sheepishly she drops her hand, wiping it on her coveralls, looking him up and down before her ears flush pink.

“Kylo!” she splutters. “Could you… do you have something that you can put on?”

Her unexpected arrival, her cherry-red ears, the way her eyes skimmed him head to toe—all he can croak out is, “Your lesson isn’t until six.”

She shrugs, following him inside. “I got off work early.”

“Wait here.” He points to the couch a few meters past the door. “I have… some business to finish.”

“I can tell,” she says, and if he wasn’t so focused on avoiding her face, he might have detected appreciation woven into her reply.

Five minutes later, he returns, towel draped over his fully clothed shoulder and hair dripping down the collar of his button-up, to find Rey pressed nose to nose with the only photo on his wall. Not the only photo, exactly, but the only one featuring people: a younger Kylo with a shriveled husk of a man at his side; behind them, a battered upright.

When he joins her at the frame, she doesn’t startle. Instead she rounds on him. “Snoke was your teacher!”

“Yes, he was.”

“Composer of a dozen operas, director of the Coruscant Symphony for a season—even I’ve heard of him! You never told me.”

Equal parts plaintive and ornery, her voice prods him to snap, “You never asked.” When she hesitates, he grows cold. Not everyone comes from a family of barbs and snipes like he does.

But she laughs—sweeter than a symphony—and elbows Kylo with a familiarity he’s not sure a handful of lessons warrants. “Fair. Let’s play.”

* * *

Rationalizing it as part of his official capacity as teacher, Kylo lets Rey educate him: which time signatures she prefers to play in, which fingering patterns come easy to her and which have her tripping over the keys, which leftovers she scarfs and which she leaves lingering in the back of his fridge. He learns that she balks at Bach, but takes to Beethoven with the same enthusiasm she brings to clearing out his secret ice cream stash.

When she arrives each week, they eat first, then move to the piano. Sometimes she pulls up a song on her phone to show him over dinner. Sometimes at the table, he pulls out the score to the song she showed the week prior. She smiles then, eyes crinkling and food forgotten. When she bolts from the table mid-bite, he has to remind her to wash her hands before laying so much as a nail on the Silencer.

Sometimes she asks him to play. Most of the time he declines, wary of eating into her limited time to practice. Occasionally he indulges her, thirsty to observe her intense concentration on his craft. He sticks to his favorites like Prokofiev and Shoenberg. When he slips in a composition of his own, he never shares its origin, but he wonders if she notices how the notes coat his fingers like a second skin.

For all the grease smudged across her cheeks and the coarseness of her mechanic’s coveralls, Rey craves softness in her music. “For kriff’s sake, Kylo, would it destroy you to play something happy?”

He stretches both arms to their fullest height, lowering them only when he senses his shirt riding up. “Sakamoto isn’t unhappy,” he replies, turning to find Rey glancing down at the sliver of stomach and back again. When he catches her staring, her lips purse.

“Well, he isn’t happy, either.”

“In three minutes with one instrument, he replicates a spring rain in the garden.” He tugs the henley back into place, a strange smugness weaving itself into the fabric of his movements. “It’s not happy or sad. Jarring, perhaps, but flowing in turn.”

Now her eyes flit anywhere but his face or his torso, landing on the trees sprawling beyond the east windows. “Balanced,” she whispers. “I see.”

* * *

Hux studies Kylo suspiciously when the piano teacher wishes him a good morning on his way into Music, First Order. He frowns when Kylo finds a Tchaikovsky concerto buried in the half-price bins in the back of the store. He gapes openly when Kylo leaves the store without running his hands over the newly-polished Starfighter, just to smudge it on his way out.

The barista at Holdo Cup notices his new mood, too, when Kylo leaves the change from a fiver in the tip jar and smiles when she holds up his grande Americano. “Finally a smile!” she crows. “Only three years in the making.”

Suppressing his scoff takes too much effort. “Maybe you spelled my name right. Only three years in the making.”

She pulls back the cup from his waiting grasp, inspecting the name emblazoned across the cardboard cozy. “Kylie Ben? Really?”

“Listen, Miss—”

“Kaydel,” she interjects.

“Listen, Kaydel, I come here for the coffee, Force knows why.” She slides his cup across the counter; he takes a sip. “I don’t tip you for your commentary.”

Skepticism radiates off of her as she turns to the espresso machine and fills a small glass. “You don’t tip.”

“I do now.”

“Whoever you’re doing, keep doing them!” she calls as he walks from the register to his customary couch by the window. Her cackles follow him as he flips her off, but he doesn’t actually mind.

* * *

It starts with a harmony that Rey plays three times in a row until determining that the fault is not in her playing but in the song itself. “It sounds wrong here. You hear it, don’t you?”

He admits the chord progression sounds off, but what’s one note in a practice piece from a forgotten primer that only students encounter? To Rey, one note is too much. Her fingers alight on his chest—so sudden, so brief—before scrabbling for the pen he always stashes in his breast pocket. Then she draws a sharp next to the offending note, tests the revised measure with a flick of her left wrist, and grins wolf-sharp.

Her audacity glues him to his seat, presses him against the back like a starship springing into space. Who is she, a novice of three months’ lessons, to correct a Windu Studios publication? Yet he has to admit, when she plays her modification, that the offending note no longer jars his ears. It blends in smoothly, just like the brush of her hand against his when she returns his pen.

* * *

It progresses with Rey’s complaints about the dissonance in the pieces he provides her. All Kylo finds in her complaints is a challenge, so he roots around in an old box of pieces to find an old modernist composition she’ll have to acknowledge as genius. The last piece his father tucked into Kylo’s backpack before heading out, never to return. He dusts it off, crossing out the name printed at the top of the cover before producing it at Rey’s next lesson.

Snatching the piece before he can open it, she examines the cover. “‘Ben’s Lullaby.’ It sounds pretty.”

“It’s not,” he replies shortly.

Unfolding the first page, she hesitates. “E minor?”

Kylo nods in reply, nudging her off the piano bench. So she can appreciate the complexity of the piece without the frustration of puzzling it out for the first time, he plays it once through. His muscles warm up with each line; they’ve traversed this territory many times prior. Still he keeps his eyes glued on the instrument spilling forth a goodbye under his touch. He can’t look up until he closes the songbook.

“Your turn.” She plays the opening page without pausing. Sight-reading, it seems, is a skill Rey acquired at the speed of light. On the second page, as the notes squirm from their soft dance into battle, the frown solidifies that flickered into existence during the first listen. Slowly her hands still before tapping a soundless melody into the space above the piano.

“I would change this flat to a sharp, and this half-note here—” From her bun, she extricates a pencil, poised to cross out the offending note.

A handful of pages worn at the edges and yellowed with age should mean nothing to him—not anymore—but the speed at which Kylo yanks the pencil from Rey’s hand causes her to yelp. He rummages through the stack of booklets on the floor before sliding a blank sheet of composition paper on the rack in front of her. “Here,” he says, shoving the pencil back into her hand. “Compared to Han Solo, you’re nothing. He captures the disintegration of a family and calls it a lullaby. Let’s see what you can do.” 

For a moment, she just stares. Then her mouth narrows, brows furrowing, and the sparkle in her eyes calcifies. A flurry of scratches across the blank paper ensues. As her buns bob furiously over her work, Kylo traces the notes of his father’s final gift—the squalling, the fighting, and the apologies documented for the whole world to hear, sold for a profit. What a fool he is for thinking this piece would be the one to hook Rey. He can hardly stand it himself.

In his mind, “Ben’s Lullaby” ignites, and with it, all of his father’s works, his piano, the whole damn room. When Rey shakes him, he starts at the warm press of her calluses against his bicep.

“You underestimate me,” she hisses, so sharply that Kylo wonders if she has mainlined his rage and made it her own. Then he can’t think at all, swept away in a composition too ravenous for his liking. She creates friction, not half as dark as he prefers, but serrated. Each moment of dissonance she resolves quickly, shifting into easy resolutions. But it’s there, the intervals she chafes against, vibrating through Kylo’s veins. Despite the simplicity of the song, characteristic of a beginner’s attempt to write music, Kylo finds himself marveling at the prodigy who wandered into his life and holds court over his thoughts.

Sure enough, she brushes off his praise. “Save it for the next one.”

* * *

True to her word, Rey sketches another song, and then another. Sometimes she brings drafts to her lessons and plays the half-finished sketches for him; sometimes she writes alone at Kylo’s Silencer. Sometimes she gets stuck, and Kylo overhears a frustrated stream of muffled curses from his place on the couch two rooms over. Often he lets her work it out. When he hears thumps, though, he always intervenes.

Another crisp fall night, they’re bent over a song that Rey has been fighting for the last two hours. “This note has no place here,” Kylo insists, scratching it out lightly. “The measure is crammed full.” A stroke of his pencil tears the cheap printer paper that Rey uses to draft.

“It’s a song,” she grumbles, running her thumb along the hole.

“Make space for silence.”

“You sure seem to know a lot about writing songs.” She drops her pen, arching an eyebrow. “Do you compose?”

“No,” he snaps, a shade too harsh for banter like this.

His severity prompts a quirk of her eyebrow, but Rey doesn’t push it. She just picks back up where she left off, scribbling and testing half-notes until the clock winds down and she disappears into the dark.

* * *

Instead of her customary knock, she greets him with a text: _Sick. Next week?_

Tonight his house feels empty without her music to fill it. To fill the void, he goes out for coffee. Kaydel accuses him of moping. As if Kylo Ren would ever be caught moping. He chuckles at her audacity, but catches himself doodling on his napkin: a treble staff and a collection of notes too symmetrical to be his.

Even in Rey’s absence, her music takes up too much space.

* * *

He broaches the question at the end of a lesson. “What model do you play on? An upright?”

She can’t disguise the clench of her jaw. He wonders if the question was too abrupt, kicks himself for disturbing the first truly companionable moment they’ve shared since she’s started composing. “Keyboards mostly. An upright when I can find one.”

“Rey, where do you play?”

“The library.”

“The public library?”

“Yeah.” She crosses her arms, shifting on the bench. Daring him to dismiss her. “You can reserve a room, 30 minutes or an hour. For free.”

“You don’t have a piano at home?”

“I’m a mechanic, Kylo, not a musician.”

 _You could be._ “If you ever want to practice and a room isn’t open…” He shrugs and swallows, and fights back a blush when her eyes widen.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” she warns. “You’ll be sick of me by the second day.”

He wants to reply, “I’ll never tire of you.” Instead he slides a key in her bag and prays to the gods that he hasn’t turned the whole thing—whatever this thing is—into bantha fodder.

The click of a key turning the deadbolt to his front door later that week assuages his fears. Rey smiles, plays for exactly an hour, and leaves him with a wave and a plate of chocolate cookies that he demolishes before she returns to play the next day.


	4. The Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A rainstorm, a morning coffee run, a secret practice session: the more Kylo discovers about Rey, the more he craves to know.

The library closes early on Fridays, and neither one of them has other places they need to be, so Rey starts coming over to Kylo’s home as soon as she escapes work. If her playing hadn’t improved so much, or if her weekly takeout wasn’t so tasty, Kylo might complain.

“Maz is a culinary genius,” he groans one Friday night, licking his chopsticks after polishing off the last morsel of beef. Now that his plate is empty, he's not quite sure where to put his hands or how to hold them. It’s easier in front of a piano. The dinner table is still unfamiliar territory.

Rey’s stomach grumbles audibly over the rain pattering on the roof. “Are you done with that?” she asks, prodding the container of rice noodles at his elbow. He dips his head—noncommittal—but Rey does not wait for permission before diving chopsticks first into the leftovers and slurping up every last noodle. She leaves the broccoli, a few forlorn stalks that peer up at Kylo when he examines the extent of her devastation.

“Two more bites left, but now you’re done?”

“Mm-hmm,” she mumbles between nibbles of an egg roll.

“You can’t just scavenge the best parts of the dish!” he argues, picking up the container to shove in her face: proof of the broccoli she abandoned.

Her only defense: an extra “mm-hmm,” filtered through a bite of sweet and sour pork. Kylo follows her trail of destruction to find the pork all gone and pineapple left soaking in the red sauce.

“You left the pineapple, too,” he splutters. “Would it kill you to eat some fruit?”

She nods, chewing the last of the sweet and sour pork. “More for you!” Her chopsticks dart into the container he holds, withdrawing a juicy slice of pineapple balanced precariously between their tips and bringing it to his lips.

They freeze, all righteous indignation seeping out of Kylo and playfulness evaporating from Rey. This is unfamiliar, too familiar. An eternity passes, then another. She breaks it with a nudge of the pineapple against her target. The juice sticks to his lips.

Swallowing hard, he opens his mouth. The tenderness with which she deposits the fruit on his tongue surprises him. The smugness with which she crows victory does not.

“You can’t just abandon the food you don’t want,” he lectures, a perfect imitation of a mother he won’t admit he misses. His weak excuse for a joke doesn’t land; Rey’s celebratory smirk crumples and she stares hard at the empty takeout boxes as if she could refill them by sheer will.

With a brutal efficiency, she stands and clears her plate. “I came for the piano.” Her brusque tone cuts through their attempts at camaraderie. “Let’s play.” At the piano some of the unexpected tension rolls off of her shoulders and into the Bach piece she’s spent the last week butchering. (“It’s too precise,” she claims when he asks if she’s struggling to sightread it.) The rain mimics her ferocity as it pounds against the solar’s windows, increasing in intensity as she exhausts herself at the keys.

She plays and he watches, pretending to organize student records whenever she pauses under his observation. Tonight there is no jesting, no calls for him to play for her, and by the time the clock strikes eight, she packs up her satchel and closes the grand’s top. 

“Thank you for the food,” he says, not knowing what else to say.

“Thank you for the piano,” she says, and by way of apology: “It’s been a long day.” He walks her to the door and waves goodnight as she dashes from the safety of his porch. Unable to make out her shadow scurrying through the downpour, he closes the door and stands there for a minute, then two, cursing himself for his inability to dispel the awkward mood. Reliving the sensation of the pineapple bursting under his teeth.

A knock disturbs his reverie; he opens the door a beat too soon to find the object of his thoughts made material, on his doorstep for the second time this evening, albeit wetter than the first time. Rey moves to step inside, and he moves to let her.

The hem of her coat drips onto the wood floor. Puddles collect around her feet. When she pushes back her hair, a few drops speckle Kylo’s shirt. How she managed to get drenched in a matter of seconds baffles Kylo, but he’s pleased to see her all the same. “You swam back to tell me—?”

“My car won’t start.” No laughing matter, even for a mechanic. Her shoulders hunch; she stuffs her fists in her coat pockets and promptly removes them when she finds the fabric soaked through.

Misreading his sympathetic frown, she fumbles for her phone. “Don’t worry, I’ll call a speeder and be out of your hair in no time.”

“No—no. I’ll take you home.” The rain renews its assault on the windows, drumming unsteady riffs across the roof. Peering out of the curtain, he assesses the situation. A clogged storm drain, a drifting mailbox, and a good eight inches of rain collecting in the parking lot. There her small sand-colored sedan sinks. His own car is up to its wheels in stormwater. Kriffing management, promising to clear the gutters before the rains hit. What a fool he was to believe it. “Your engine is wet,” he guesses.

Her head snaps up from her phone, calculating. “What do you know about cars?”

“Enough to know it’s too deep to drive anything out of this complex, speeder cabs included.”

Again her shoulders slump. “Force knows that after a day like today the last thing I need is...” Then she cracks, a small gasp at first that Kylo mistakes for a laugh, followed by a sob too big to be mistaken for a shiver.

Torn between offering comfort and protecting her dignity, Kylo steps forward but makes no move to reach out. “Don’t worry. We have what we need here—dinner, a roof, a dryer. Stay with me.”

Kylo bites down a chuckle at the sight of a speechless Rey. She stares at him suspiciously until a hoarse approximation of her voice materializes. “I can’t… You don’t want…”

“I do,” he says earnestly. Misliking the clench in his chest when her eyes soften, he adds, “Your lessons pay my rent. I have a vested interest in protecting you from getting swept out sea before next month's rent is due.”

When she bends over to slide off her shoes, Kylo knows he won. “Fine, but only because you need to pay rent.”

“Precisely.” Her shoes are off, her expectant eyes on him. The evening yawns before them, a gaping jumble of possibilities that terrify and excite Kylo in equal measure. He wracks his brain for activities to fill the time.

“Hungry?” he offers weakly, although they ate only a few hours prior—apparently, a few hours too long ago for Rey’s liking. The grin he receives is positively ravenous. Rooting around the kitchen cupboards, they attempt to cobble together a post-dinner snack.

“Corellian wine!” Rey gasps, cradling the forest-green bottle with the same reverence she approaches the Silencer. “This stuff’s impossible to find. Have you heard the legends? At the peak of his career, Han Solo refused to go onstage without a glass… or two.” She cocks her head, then hastily amends, “That’s what they say, anyway.”

His expression curdles harshly, and he snatches the bottle from her grasp without pausing to extract his nails from the skin of her forearm. As he slams the bottle in the back of a cabinet too tall for her to reach, she flinches. Monstrous, he knows, but he can’t open that bottle tonight. So he wipes the scowl from his brows and dons his neutral instructor mask. “You’re a lightweight,” he says gently, trying to soothe the sting in both of their bellies.

“Am not,” she protests, but she remains turned from him, one hand absently rubbing the skin he snagged.

“Please,” he says, not entirely sure what he asks from her. She steps towards him, proffering her arm. Inspecting it turns into running a finger along the scratches, which turns into pressing his palm against the marks. Her pulse sputters, warm under his touch.

“It’s been a long day,” she says again. Excusing him. Inviting him. Pulling away demands more effort than Kylo intended. From a dusty cupboard, he scrounges a tin of sweet malla leaves: half apology, half excuse.

Reaching for the kettle that inhabits the back of his stove, he finds himself sharing, “My mother would make us tea on days like these.”

Instead of asking questions that Kylo might bristle at, Rey nods solemnly. “Tell me more.”

He turns on the faucet, filling the kettle for two. “She wore perfume that smelled like oro blossoms and chewed mint to help her sleep.”

He ignites the stove. “This kettle was hers.”

He sets down the kettle. It clangs against the burner. “She didn’t cry when my father left.”

“Did you?”

For a moment, there is only the rush of the gas, the flame. “You never talk about your parents.”

“There’s nothing to say.” Water trickling down the kettle’s sides sizzles, evaporating. Rey tracks the steam’s progress enviously, fiercely, as if she wishes to escape the conversation. But outside the rain thunders on without signs of abating.

“I understand,” he says, turning to give her privacy. He busies himself by measuring the leaves into cups, gathering spoons and saucers, and pouring water into cups once the kettle whistles merrily. Pushing a cup towards her, he shifts the conversation to a safer topic by leading her to the living room. “Let’s play.”

Her quizzical expression morphs into a groan when Kylo pulls out two decks of face cards from a sleek black cupboard. “Should’ve known,” she mutters, but she accepts one deck and sits cross-legged on the rug in front of the couch, shuffling the cards with practiced ease.

Competition, Kylo quickly learns, fuels Rey. In the demo round, he beats her, ten cards to none, but after that she makes him pay for every card he slaps down. The tips of his fingers smart after a particularly rapid interchange that results in her stuffing the edge of her card under his and stealing a slice of skin from his knuckles. When their third game ends in a draw, Kylo laughs at her scrappy play style. When she beats him in game four, he’s no longer laughing. He calls for a rematch, but she wins again with a triumphant crow. She’s not a humble victor. Kylo relishes her celebrations, for persuading her to play is no small victory on his part.

When her onslaught overwhelms him, Kylo feigns exhaustion and taps out despite her protests. At his insistence, they clean up the cards and curl up on the couch in front of the TV, wrapped in separate blankets at opposite ends.

They jerk awake, a tangle of limbs, to a vibration from his phone. The rain drumming on the roof matches Kylo’s pounding heart as Rey nestles her head into his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs, trying to soothe her back to sleep, but she shakes off her blanket with groggy determination.

“Bedtime,” she croaks, twice before Kylo tears his eyes from the notification he received. His mother, again, this time with all the subtlety of a French horn. He leaves his phone on the couch when he ducks out of the room to prepare for his guest.

A pile of toiletries exchanges hands: a towel, washcloth, and extra toothbrush. He leads her to the spare bedroom that’s part study and all storage, removing from the futon a stack of worn cardboard boxes, their lids taped shut. His muscles protest as he hoists up the boxes, then unceremoniously dumps them in a pile near the window.

“Leaving so soon?” she asks as he turns. Swallowing, he freezes until she nods at the stack of packages behind him.

He forces a laugh past the lump constricting his throat. “Someone… asked me to hold onto the boxes, just until he finds room to store them elsewhere.”

“When will he come back?” He notes the concern in her voice, the worn stretch of carpet from the futon to the door, the angry dust coating the boxes. He hates the way his shrug mirrors the man whose belongings litter the room that should glow for Rey.

As she closes the gap between them, raising her arms to hug him, Kylo starts. To Rey’s credit, she doesn’t shrink back. She pauses until he looks her in the eye long enough to see the compassion that’s not quite pity, until his arms reach up to meet hers. They stay like that for a while, his jaw resting in the crook of her neck, her head buried in his chest. The way her chest hiccups suggests that she’s no stranger to loss. Kylo thanks the same rain he cursed only hours before. Tonight, he’s not alone in a house too big for just him, with a piano haunted by ghosts.

“Call me if you need anything,” he says after disentangling himself from her embrace. “I’m just down the hall.”

She grins mischievously enough that Kylo begins to regret the offer. “How about a bedtime lullaby?”

* * *

On the road to drop Rey off next morning, Kylo swings through the Holdo Cup drive-through. Kaydel’s working the window with a smirk wide enough to touch the braids framing her face when she spots Rey in the passenger seat. She snorts when Kylo slips her his card before Rey can reach for her wallet.

“This defeats the purpose of me paying for lessons,” grumbles Rey, but the rose coloring her cheeks betrays her. Kylo would teach her for free to preserve this blush.

“You’re my guest.” He savors the warmth that spreads through his veins when he catches her grateful smile with a sidelong glance.

A bump at his elbow reminds him that they have an audience. Looks like Kaydel broke out a cardboard carrier for their drinks, no matter that it fits four cups and Kylo only ordered two. “Grande Americano,” she sighs, her curiosity camouflaged as boredom. “And green tea for your—”

He won’t take the bait, but Rey remains oblivious to the barista’s fishing. “Student!” she finishes, reaching for her drink. “Thank you.”

“Student,” Kaydel repeats, eyebrows threatening to disappear into her hairline. “What’s this guy teaching you?”

“Thank you, Kaydel.” Kylo shifts the car into drive. She tosses the receipt into his lap before he has the chance to speed away. “Keep doing her,” it reads in flowing script. Kylo crumples it and throws it to rest on the floorboards before Rey has a chance to squabble about the price of her tea. A glance in his side mirror shows Kaydel snickering as the car pulls out. Leaning out of the driver’s window, Kylo thanks her with the flip of a finger.

Rey squeaks when she catches sight of his gesture. “I like her.”

“That’s just because she makes good tea,” Kylo counters.

“Next time I’ll buy,” she swears, inhaling the steam and sighing after her first sip.

“Next time you get stranded in your teacher’s home during a flood.”

“You’re not just my teacher,” she says, so determined that Kylo almost believes her. “Tuesday lessons, sure. But Friday night takeout? Sleepovers? This makes us friends.”

Until Rey points out the hammering noise at the next stoplight, his fingers drum a tuneless ode of joy on the wheel.

* * *

Soon the receipt from their morning coffee run disappears under the volume of overdue library books overflowing from the passenger seat, spilling onto the floorboards and threatening to spill out of the car each time Kylo opens the door. He stops to return them at the library on the drive home from a pit stop at Music, First Order (this time for proper music manuscript paper, not the copyrighted templates that Rey prints for fifteen cents a sheet at the library. He’ll surprise her at the next lesson; her delight will bathe the solar in sun).

When he pulls up to the library, he spots a familiar sandy sedan with dents in the trunk and passenger doors that he could draw by memory. The same dented sedan parks outside of his house every Tuesday and Friday, and most Sundays, too.

Curiosity tugs him from the comfort of his car and the drive-through book drop into the library, up the staircase and past the science fiction shelves to the practice rooms. Three of them, he notes, poorly insulated and stocked with outdated equipment scrounged from wealthy patrons. Upon closer examination, all three of the rooms are full—one with a couple who seems more intent on making out than making music, another with a father on the keyboard urging his daughter on the flute to play the measure again but slower, and the third with Rey.

Despite the frosted glass on the practice space doors, he recognizes her not by the silhouette of her buns, but by the tune she draws from the piano, spinning silence into gold. This is the song that she played for him in First Order, the song he wrote a harmony for. He grips the knob before processing the motion, but hesitates.

Logically a small part of his brain understands that Rey must practice outside of his solar. Without extra hours on the bench, she couldn’t achieve such rapid progress. But it stings, the thought of her waiting for a turn to sit at a donated upright in desperate need of tuning when his Silencer sits unused, longing for her touch after his students leave.

The notes she coaxes from this hunk of junk sound like she’s playing a top of the line instrument, one of Hux’s custom concert grands that he polishes daily. Not someone’s secondhand garbage, gifted to a public institution as a tax write-off. Rey deserves better.

Just a few more minutes, Kylo rationalizes from behind the frosted glass. As her teacher, he has a vested interest in this practice. How else will he learn how she plays when he is not around to evaluate her performance?

A few minutes turns into a half hour, with Kylo shifting from foot to foot outside the little practice room and his overdue books forgotten in this car. Rey tackles the sonata that she stole during her first lesson before moving into the Chopin nocturne. Although Kylo only gave her the nocturne last week, her nimble navigation of the coda suggests that she has spent months acquainting herself with its minefield of sharps and flats.

One more song, Kylo swears, and then he’ll leave—a small lie that even he doesn’t believe. The next song pins his feet to the floor. He hasn’t heard it before, not from Rey, not from any of the usual composers. It’s simple, nothing quite as technical as the pieces she’s played thus far, but etched into each note is a longing that settles low in his gut as he listens.

A few measures in and he’s hooked. Then she opens her mouth and he’s a goner. He has half a mind to burst in and demand that she reveal every secret talent she hasn’t had a chance to share with him. He wants to know her from the beginning until now, pour through her memories and learn what makes up her soul.

Her voice sparkles, ice on pine needles, sunset over an ocean of sand. It slices through the notes that rise and fall from her hands, builds to a crescendo only to plunge into a bitter whisper. It sings of hunger, loss, and a hope thick like honey. Her voice is an island; the piano, waves that bathe its shores; Kylo, a swimmer willing to drown in her depths.

Though he wills it to continue, eventually the song ends. The library rushes to fill the void her voice leaves: clacking keys from a nearby bank of computers, the rustle of pages, and encouragement from the father and daughter rehearsing one door down. From Rey’s room, he hears signs that her session is drawing to a close: the unlatching of a satchel, the folding of sheet music and the swish of a water bottle. Kylo hurries to his car, driving away before she discovers evidence of his presence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this one-shot turned into 7 chapters, then turned into 8 chapters. More to come very soon! Thank you for providing a prompt that sparked my imagination. :)


	5. The Trade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Over drinks one night after piano lessons, Kylo and Rey stumble into something more.

When Rey next calls, Kylo’s buried two pages deep into the first composition he’s written since inheriting the Silencer. Startled by the ring and more so by her name on the screen, he answers, sacrificing the melody he has painstakingly chiseled from the ether for the rush that her voice sparks.

“Are you free tomorrow?” Almost shy, this is a Rey whom Kylo hasn’t spoken with often.

“I teach from twelve to six.” He scribbles down a note before it flees his memory.

“Then drinks at Zorii’s Cantina?”

“Drinks?” His mind struggles to catch up. “With you?”

“No,” she huffs. “With your old teacher, Snoke. Of course with me. Will you?”

This must be some sort of trap. Payback for the Debussey he asked her to memorize last week after she butchered its iconic riff. “I don’t know if I’m free.”

A scoff crackles through the connection. “I’ve seen your evening routine. You’re not busy. Join me.”

With that sort of steel in Rey’s voice, Kylo’s not sure he could resist her much longer. “7:00?”

“6:30. Don’t leave me hanging, Ren.”

“You won’t be alone,” he promises, turning back to the piano once the call ends. He tries to continue his composition, but the invitation ruins it. The notes have morphed into something far too light for him to use. He starts fresh on a new manuscript sheet, scrawling delight so harmonious that Rey would mock him if she knew he wrote it. He couldn’t send it to his publisher, but when was the last time he sent along something usable? Not since Han left.

Abandoning songwriting for something too undignified to call preparing for the date tomorrow, but too exultant to mask as routine, Kylo prowls the length of his closet. Up until this point, it has contained clothes to suit every situation: button ups for lessons, t-shirts for home, and tuxes to dazzle Carnegie Hall in another life. But a night out at a bar? For the first time in his life, Kylo’s wardrobe fails him, and the thought keeps him up longer than it should that night. He falls asleep contemplating the fine line between discord and harmony, between dark and light, between hanging out and going on a date.

* * *

Black hasn’t gone out of style as far as Kylo’s concerned, so he puts his faith in a leather jacket that hasn’t seen the light of day since his touring years and pulls up outside of the small brick cantina with five minutes to spare. He parks the motorcycle, fiddles with the keys for longer than necessary, and leaves the helmet at the door before he can chicken out and speed home.

She’s already inside, staking out a space at the gleaming wooden bar. For a Thursday, the cantina is crowded, bustling with pool players and social drinkers. And a woman waiting for him. He spots her immediately, through the fog of smoldering joints and the dust of peanut shells, three buns and an impatient twist of her neck as she scans the place.

Knocking back the contents of her tumbler when he approaches, she stands to greet him, peanut shells crunching underfoot. The gauzy yellow dress she wears clings first to the stool in protest when she rises, then to her legs as she steps forward. It’s so different from her mechanic’s jumpsuit or overalls that Kylo’s left gaping like a bantha in heat.

“You don’t have to do this,” she says by way of hello.

Now’s the time for Kylo to break out a witty retort; even a simple “I’m here, aren’t I?” would suffice. But that karking dress and the grin she suppresses upon spotting him at the entrance has him blurting out, “You look beautiful.”

Beautiful. Not gorgeous, not stunning, not like sunlight on a winter’s day. Beautiful. Kylo wills the dingy floor to open up and devour him. By the scuffed floorboards’ creaking as he shifts nervously, his wish might come true.

Uncouth as his comment is, it draws a smile from her that flickers hungrily when she takes in his appearance. “You look…” He doesn’t know whether to panic or relax when she trails off in favor of looking him up and down again. When he sits and accidentally bumps her shoulder with his, she doesn’t move to make room. Even through the leather jacket, Kylo feels her radiating heat. So this is Rey away from the piano. He thinks he likes her even more now if that’s possible.

She wastes no time in calling the bartender over for another Sarlacc Kicker. The name makes Kylo wince, but the bartender only winks at the order, muscles rippling under his tight orange tee as he reaches for a bottle of sunfruit liquor. Mixing the drink with a little too much flair for Kylo’s liking, the bartender never takes his eyes off of Rey, whose eyes widen when he pours pineapple juice from an unreasonable height without spilling. After topping the drink with a maraschino cherry, the bartender slides it to his captive audience, the scar on his cheek stretching as he declares, “On me if you can tie the stem.”

Lined up in neat rows wider than Rey is tall, the bottles behind the bar refract the yellow lights twinkling above them. They highlight the sharpness of her cheekbones and glint off the whites of her teeth when she grins wolfishly at the challenge. Before Rey reaches for the refill, Kylo slams a twenty on the bar, startling his companion. “Keep the change,” he growls.

Faster than the bartender can pick up the bill, Rey clamps the cherry between her white wolf teeth. As she sucks down the cherry with a purse of her lips, she catches Kylo’s eyes and winks. Internally he curses himself for his involuntary gulp that doesn’t escape her scrutiny. He also curses the bartender, who is doing a poor job of pretending to wipe down the bar as he watches Rey’s mouth contort around the stem.

“An Alderaanian beer, please.” Kylo relishes the bartender’s frown as he turns from the show and walks to the taps. With just Kylo watching, Rey bites her lip before resuming the struggle. Her frustration builds in her balling fists, her tapping feet.

Just when Kylo thinks she’s given up, Rey gives a garbled shout. Pinching the stem between thumb and forefinger, she holds it up in a victory salute. “Didn’t know if I could pull that off,” she whispers, her lips brushing the shell of Kylo’s ear.

To the bartender she says, “You owe me a drink.”

He plucks the prize from her grasp. “So I do.” His fingers linger over hers.

“The beer?” Kylo prompts, anything to tear the man’s hands from Rey’s. Thirty seconds later, a freshly poured pint arrives.

The bartender makes a show of smoothing out the twenty dollar bill Kylo flung at him earlier and proffering it to Rey. “Keep the change,” he drawls, slipping away.

As his mind conjures up a myriad of uses for Rey’s tongue, Kylo digs his nails into the cracked leather of his stool. He takes a sip of the beer, and a second for good measure. All foam at first, it does little to quench his thirsty imagination.

Turning to find her leaning towards him, he draws a ragged breath, tasting sickly-sweet smoke mingled with sweat and trying not to choke. “What a mess,” Rey admonishes, running her thumb along the foam coating his lip. She moves to wipe it on her skirt, until he catches hold of her wrist.

“Don’t make a bigger mess.” A request that Rey interprets as another challenge. So she strikes, painting the foam on his cheek with a lightning-fast caress that propels Kylo’s heartbeat to the roof.

Clearly Rey didn’t wait for Kylo to get started drinking, and the effects show before Kylo finishes his first beer. As it turns out, she’s a lightweight. He had suspected as much when he confiscated the Corellian wine during the rain storm. Would that he had the same good sense now as he did then, that he’d ease the glass from her grip, coax her into a speeder cab, and send her home. But thin tendrils of hair curl against the nape of her neck, and her dress glows in the fairy lights that rim the bar, and whenever she laughs too hard she reaches for his arm to stabilize herself. She invited him here, he justifies. It would be rude to cut their evening short when it’s just begun.

Thirty minutes and one shared basket of fries later, Kylo wonders why he had entertained the thought of leaving. Conversation with Rey has never flowed so easily, despite the thump of bottles, boots and pool balls keeping time with the bass thrumming overhead. She takes his stilted pauses in stride, lets the conversation ebb and flow like the Tevraki whiskey now swilling in her cup. That is, until she discovers how he arrived at the bar.

“You have a bike and you didn’t tell me?” she exclaims, tongue thick as lead. “Kylo Ren, master of the piano, rider of Harleys.”

“It’s just a Falcon,” he says, tracing the cantina’s logo etched on his glass.

Her eyes bug out alarmingly. “Just a Falcon? The suspension on those bikes, even after all these years, is still top of the line. They swear you can’t feel the cracks in the highway.”

Music might come naturally to Rey, but machines are her element. Her enthusiasm gleams neon, eclipsing the twinkle lights strung overhead. Kylo basks in her glow, eager to stoke its fire. “A couple years back, I installed front forks when it started to wear. Back to new.”

Disbelief pushes her forward until their shoulders brush. “You’re lying.”

He swivels to fully face her, knees resting against her thighs. “I never lied to you.” Not really.

Her laughter is luminescent. “How have we spent the last three months together without this coming up?” Kylo rolls the word around in his mouth: together. It slipped off her tongue so quickly he wonders if he imagined it. “Forget the Silencer, I’m coming over for the Falcon.”

“We’re not done with lessons yet.”

“That bike is wasted on you.”

“I’ve kept it in peak condition forty years after production.” Keeping the pride from his voice takes too much effort. 

“I’d kill to work on a bike like that, let alone own one,” she admits. “Not like that’ll ever happen.”

“Why not?” Lost in studying her face, he almost misses her snort.

“Couldn’t pick up enough extra shifts to cover the monthly payments, even if I can do the maintenance work at cost. I already started working Saturdays to pay for piano—” The rose in her cheeks fades as she bites off her sentence and washes it down with whiskey.

“Rey.” She doesn’t look up. “Rey.” He lays a hand on her arm. It trembles. “You’re working extra to pay for lessons.”

No response. Under his touch, her pulse pounds erratically. The bottles behind the bar glisten, taunting him. “If I had known—”

“How did you get your hands on a Silencer anyway?” Bitter is a new flavor for Rey; Kylo doesn’t like the taste. “Sugar pine ribs, solid spruce bases, finished in mahogany. Even a skilled piano teacher like yourself can’t afford it.”

Jerking free, he downs the rest of the pint, a transparent stalling tactic that Rey sees right through. “A gift.”

They sit like that for a while, letting the smoke and noise roil over their shame. She calls for another drink, her fourth in so many hours. The bartender with the orange tee and scarred cheek cheerfully supplies her with more whiskey. A few generous sips later, she leans over to Kylo, wavering atop her stool. “You hafta let me take the Falcon for a drive.”

He chuckles at her pout and the defiant jut of her chin, juxtaposed against her swaying and slurred speech. “Not tonight.”

“I can handle your bike,” she yawns.

“I know.” 

“You’re good with cars. More than good,” he amends as her eyes narrow. “I could use your help with the Falcon. Recently the engine started making some strange noises.”

“Time for an oil change?” she ribs.

The only dignified response is to hold up a finger and wait for her snark to take a backseat to her curiosity. Sure enough, Rey quiets. “I want your mechanical knowledge. You want my piano. I propose a trade.”

Although it takes a beat longer than it should, the unspoken message registers with Rey. “No—no, I couldn’t.”

“Do it,” he urges. “It’s not a gift. You need a teacher. I need one, too.”

As she mulls the prospect over, he resists the urge to pound his head against the bar. Anything to quell his worry rising up in the absence of a clear response. She squints at their reflections swimming in the bottles across the bar before nodding slowly. “A trade.”

“A trade.”

She fumbles for her glass, nearly shattering its stem, and holds it aloft. A toast that Kylo is too eager to complete. A few drops of her scarlet drink splash on his leather jacket when their glasses meet.

When she regards the mess, her eyes are too bright, glassy under the fairy lights. “I like your jacket,” she says conspiratorially, patting at the spill with the hem of her sunshine dress. The gauzy fabric soaks up the drink. The red bloom unsettles Kylo into prying her hands from the dress and pushing her glass out of reach.

“That’s mine,” she mumbles, sloppily moving to push his hands out of the way.

He whisks the cocktail from her grasping clutches. “No more tonight.”

“Next time.” It’s more slur than speech, but Kylo clings to the promise with unexpected fervor.

“Next time,” he agrees, guiding her from the stool, through the minefield of pool tables and merry patrons, and into the brisk Chandrila night. A smattering of stone benches populate the sidewalk outside Zorii’s. One is occupied by a snoring patron who reeks of gin, even through the overcoat turned makeshift blanket. A second bench is empty, save for a few discarded coffee cups. Kylo helps Rey sit, shrugging off his jacket and wrapping it around her shoulders before throwing away the trash and joining her at the opposite end of the bench.

“Let’s get you home.”

The vehemence with which she shakes her head surprises him. “Not yet. Please.”

“Okay.” So they wait until the cold of the stone seeps through their clothes and into their bones. It’s late when Rey stirs. By then, most revelers have departed Zorii’s, leaving only the regulars tucked in for the night at their booths.

Her whole frame shakes when she stands, despite the borrowed jacket. Once she stands, Kylo jumps to his feet, ignoring the ache blossoming at the base of his spine. Every hair on his arms stands at attention, whether from the cold or her proximity he can’t tell. “Let me get my helmet,” he says, ducking back into the bar.

When he reemerges from the cantina, helmet in hand, Rey extracts herself from his jacket and holds it out, but he shakes his head. “You’ll need it.”

“Are you offering me a ride?” 

There’s no need to call for a speeder cab when he’s certain he can drive after two pints spread out over a few hours, with fries to soak them up. A smaller man than Kylo might still feel their effects, but his size rendered him coherent soon after he settled up the tab. No size, however, inoculates him against the warmth Rey prompts in his stomach, nor the buzz she ignites in his brain.

“I don’t have a second helmet.” He nearly shudders at the note of apology warming his tone.

Outside there are no fairy lights or neon signs to illuminate her face. But the moon holds court over the stars, and its light is enough for Kylo to make out the glint in Rey’s eyes. “You’re offering me a ride.”

He leads her to his bike, parked within view of their bench. “A Falcon!” she exclaims again, shaking her head in wonderment as she swings a leg over the saddle. “Shit, Kylo, what else are you hiding?”

His helmet won’t slide over her neat row of buns, so she reaches up to undo them. Only once the first elastic tangles beyond repair does she look to Kylo for help. He combs the snarl from her hair and lets down the other two knots until her hair streams free. Ignoring how she practically purrs when he runs his fingers through her scalp demands all his willpower. Instead he guides her head into the helmet, a full face with silver lines emblazoned across the forehead. A loose fit, but safer than nothing. He hates how his heart speeds at the sight of Rey in his gear.

His friend, he reminds himself as he hefts himself into the saddle and coaxes the Falcon to life. His piano protege, nothing more. She scrabbles for a handhold on the seat they share. “This strap is garbage,” she mumbles loud enough for Kylo to hear over the engine’s rumble.

“Don’t bother with the strap,” he warns, but still she simply sniffs.

As the bike belches laboriously and reverses with unexpected speed, she yelps, weaving her arms under his and around his waist with surprising force. Her chest presses against his back, banishing the late autumn chill. Suddenly thankful that he lent her his jacket, Kylo wonders if the bike is overheating or just him. Between the Falcon’s age and Rey’s effect on him, it’s a toss-up.

“Tap if you need me to stop,” he hollers at the next stop, and then they’re off. The directions she gives him send them speeding through town, past Kylo’s usual route home down Barbican Road and over the bridge spanning the Eleutherian Plaza.

He pulls up in front of a sagging apartment building after a ride that lasts both the blink of an eye and the span of eternity. Too soon, her arms unwind from their knot around his stomach; the late autumn chill steals their place. She sways in place after disembarking, not from the drinks but from something softer.

Under the streetlight, her cheekbones gleam, speckled with freckles. A snowmelt shadow limns her eyes. The evening settles thick on Kylo’s shoulders, not unlike the leather jacket cocooning Rey. It prompts him to engage the kickstand, step over the saddle and onto the sidewalk outside her peeling place.

The roots of a gnarled tintolive tree gnaw at the pavement underfoot. When Rey takes a step forward, they clutch at her feet and demand she steady herself against Kylo. He makes no move to step away. She pushes his hair back before he realizes it’s fallen in his face. Her fingers streak gold across his cheeks.

“You have that look in your eye,” she says. “The one from the spare room.”

Maybe he does. Maybe not. All Kylo knows is the tilt of her chin, the yellow of her dress, the husk in her voice never present before. He steps forward. Their toes meet, then their chests as his arms draw her in, palms slick against the leather. Her hands flicker from his back to his waist, finally sinking into his chest. Dyad heartbeats under a harvest moon.

A piece by Yakimoto springs to mind when she leans in to kiss him: a dozen staccato notes, spanned over two octaves. Half notes, quarter notes, the pebbling of stars into existence. Then a series of rests eclipsing each star, stretching into disquieting emptiness. Another trill, frenetic and discordant. The sound of distant galaxies colliding.

Rey leans in—Kylo strains to meet her—and it’s tongue against teeth, and Kylo’s left seeing stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TheStolenQuill, I apologize for taking nearly a year to update this treat for you! I wrote 7 chapters by last year's Valentine's exchange, but couldn't get the ending right and put off posting the rest until I could wrap it up. With the next RFFA exchange coming up, I figured that I needed to finish this piece. Hope all is going well for you. :)


	6. The Discovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo makes room for Rey in his life, relishing their new relationship until a secret from his past resurfaces and threatens to crumble his present.

Patterns govern Kylo’s existence: he teaches five to six lessons a day, orders coffee from Holdo Cup on Mondays and Wednesdays, and practices the piano alone for two hours before bed. Soon he discovers that inviting Rey into his life means making space for her in his routines, or scrapping old routines for new ones. Morning coffee runs turn into afternoon coffee dates when Rey manages to sneak away from the auto shop. Practicing the piano before bed turns into playing alongside Rey, or kissing her on the couch, or working together on the Falcon.

The first time she takes a wrench to the Falcon, she pauses reverently before touching the bike. In that moment, she glows, spattered with grease and gasoline and a kind of pure delight that makes Kylo’s heart ache. After checking everything from the coolant to the tire pressure, she cleans the chain with a gentle bristled brush that she filched from work. “Wouldn’t hurt you to lube it more often,” she chastises as he wipes a bit of grime from the tip of her nose. When she says, “I’ll keep an eye on it over the next few months” in that offhand way of hers, his pulse stutters. Casually planning for a future together takes him by surprise, yet it warms him to his core.

The next week, she brings him a special lubricant from the auto shop and greases the Falcon’s chain with the same care that Kylo puts into dusting his Silencer. Another week, she brings a replacement radiator cap scrounged from the junkyard. She loosens the throttle cables and repacks the muffler properly after his botched air filter replacement. Under her tutelage, Kylo learns how to better care for the bike. Because of Rey’s care, the bike improves and so does Kylo’s mood.

* * *

With Rey by his side, mundane errands become trips to savor. They stop for coffee from Holdo Cup, for new books from the library, for new sheet music from Music, First Order. No longer does Rey shy away from the Starfighter on display at First Order. Even Hux’s most pointed scowls can’t keep her from sitting at the bench and striking up a tune.

At the first notes she coaxes from the display model, Hux begins to meander in her direction, preparing to tell her off, no doubt. As she reaches a crescendo, however, he freezes in his tracks. His unpleasant sneer morphs into something vaguely resembling surprise, then respect. He does not come closer, does not back away, just stands rooted to the spot as Rey makes the Starfighter sing.

As the last notes fade, drawn out by the pedal and spun into vapor, a handful of patrons scattered around the store applaud. Closing the fallboard and rising from the bench, Rey mock-curtsies in gratitude, then winks at Kylo. His whole body vibrates in tune with hers, as if they were crafted from the same piano wire. Her mirth doesn’t blind Kylo from Hux’s scrutiny. The red-haired manager looks at them, a puzzle that he can’t quite solve, until they exit the store, braced against the snow, Rey’s hand wrapped around Kylo’s.

* * *

Kylo doesn’t do Christmas, not since the year that his father walked out on him and his mother, and didn’t return until New Year’s Eve. But when he notices Rey mooning over a Christmas tree lot, he wrangles home a noble fir and sets it up across from the couch. She doesn’t see it at first, slamming the door and tearing off her shoes with a vicious declaration that she will never, ever work a shift next to Unkar Plutt again.

“What a barbarian,” she mutters, flinging down her satchel. Then she straightens, and the lights from the tree wink at her, lights that Kylo painstakingly detangled and wove through each branch for what felt like hours. Her thankful kiss makes the whole ordeal worth it.

“We could decorate it,” he offers. She flings herself at him, calls for scissors, and shows him how to fold his first snowflake. His snips are even, orderly—hers, a wild curvature leaving more holes than paper. They hang the snowflakes delicately from pine boughs and bask in the warmth of a tree all their own.

When Ben eavesdrops on Rey’s piano practice after they finish decking the tree, he hears the soft hum of words sung too quietly to distinguish. They rise and fall, unintelligible but soft as the lights twinkling from their tree.

* * *

His lungs ache. His whole chest aches from the effort. His attempts to swallow the tickle in his throat fail. Kylo Ren is sick for the first time in years, just in time for Rey’s lesson. She can’t play through a line without pausing for his cough to pass. After he survives a particularly long bout, she closes the Silencer’s lid. “But your lesson has barely begun,” he splutters before she hands him a tissue.

“You need to rest,” she declares. “I’m done for the night.”

Protesting does not sway her. She marches him out of the music solar, down the hall, and into his bedroom, hesitating only briefly over the threshold before throwing on the light and tucking him into bed. The snap in her wrist as she tugs the sheets over his body and under the mattress comforts Kylo, reminds him of his mother whose unanswered calls keep trickling in.

Rey leaves him to doze, returning to wake him with a bowl of steaming chicken soup. He eats it sitting up in bed; she perches on the foot of the mattress, hawkishly tracking his progress, making sure he gulps down every last spoonful.

“Where did you get this?” he marvels, the broth soothing his raw throat.

A wave of her hand dismisses the question, but a faint flush creeping up her neck belies her pride. “I made it.” Once he devours the last of the soup, Rey takes the bowl and makes for the door. Something about the warmth of the soup or the kindness of the gesture tugs a protest out of Kylo.

“Join me,” Kylo croaks. She freezes a beat too long before turning to face him. “Please.” Holding back a cough, he pulls back the quilts. “Just for a little.” The pause lengthens. He fully expects her to decline—he’s sick, she’s tired, they’ve never done this before. Still, when she leaves the room, bowl in hand, he swallows a disappointed sigh before turning over to face the wall.

Then she returns, slipping softly under the covers and curving her body around his in a protective gesture so tender that Kylo resolves to get sick more often if this is the result.

* * *

“It’s not much,” he warns, leading her into the storage unit. But she gasps just the same.

“I have no place to put it,” she protests. But she allows him to arrange for movers to lug it over the tintolive crack in the sidewalk outside her place and into her apartment.

“A piano,” she murmurs after the movers depart and it’s just the two of them staring at the battered upright that used to belong to Kylo’s father.

“Your piano,” he insists. Every ivory key is chipped along the edge, looking like the losers in a fight with a space slug. But he knows a good tuner, and Rey closes late at the auto shop that week to afford Chewie’s services. When he stops by, a big hairy hulk of a man, he greets Kylo with the familiarity of an uncle. True to his word, though, Chewie says nothing of the past, just gets straight to work turning pins and dusting the insides of the piano he hasn’t seen for the past twenty years.

“How do you know Kylo?” Rey asks Chewie as he screws back on the lid. He just smiles through that thick beard of his before refusing the cash she holds out in payment.

“Family and friends discount,” he says, packing the last of his tools. “Anytime you want to learn more about tuning, I’d be happy to show you. B—er, Kylo’s got my number.”

Chewie’s slip of tongue doesn’t seem to register with Rey, whose face remains suffused with excitement. But Kylo glares at the tuner all the same. A close call, too close. Once Chewie leaves, Rey pulls out the bench and plays the song she played in the First Order shop, the one for which Kylo later wrote a harmony, two halves that now form a whole.

* * *

The stars have conquered the sky by the time Rey notices the clock and curses. “I have to be at work in six hours!” she yelps, throwing back the quilts and swinging her legs over the side of Kylo’s bed.

“Stay,” he says, half question, half command. “I’ll wake you up on time.”

They fall asleep in the same position they did weeks ago when he was sick. Hovering in that liminal space between wakefulness and sleep, Kylo can’t commit to sleep, not when the body next to him thrashes and moans in some imagined battle with an invisible opponent. When a scream escapes her, primal and tortured, he shakes her awake until she calms enough to settle back into his arms.

Her night terrors burn away in the morning light. He hands her a new toothbrush once her shower is done. The next week, her toothbrush is joined by a change of clothes, then a tube of sunscreen and a citrus face scrub that Kylo samples one morning after she leaves just so he can smell like her. Watching Rey move in by a thousand installments thrills Kylo, and without prompting, he clears out a whole drawer in his bedroom for her.

* * *

They return to Zorii’s bar late one Friday night as winter softens into a false spring. Kylo orders two cometdusters, one for each of them, just like his dad used to order for his mom, and lets Rey drive the Falcon home. She’s steady and warm; Kylo clings to her the whole way home. She sleeps over most nights; tonight is no exception. He wonders if her roommates notice her absence. He wonders how a bed made for one so easily accommodates her curled up at his side.

He learns that she sleeps curled inward, defenses intact even when resting. She yelps when awakened—he learns this one morning as he shakes her awake in time for her shift at the auto shop. Ever the scavenger, she hoards the quilts and whimpers when he pries one from her grip. One pillow is not enough; two pillows, too much; his pillow, just right.

* * *

At the rate Rey eats up his composition paper, Kylo almost regrets teaching her how to write music. The depleted stack of blank sheets and an idea tickling the recesses of his memory drives Kylo to Music, First Order to replenish his stock. Hux is on duty, much to Kylo’s chagrin. His polished boots squeak a path from the register to the aisle that Kylo browses. “Kylo Ren,” he sighs. “Back again so soon.”

Kylo won’t give him the satisfaction of eye contact, so he keeps his nose buried in the shelf. “Shove off, Hux.”

“Careful, Ren,” he says, the syllables slippery on his tongue. “I wonder what that little… scavenger of yours might think to hear you talk like that.”

Every nerve in Kylo’s body prickles; his pulse screams danger and his breathing roughens. “I said, shove off.”

“You know,” the manager continues, willfully ignoring the curl of Kylo’s fists, the flare of his nostrils. “A visitor stopped by again last week.”

He startles, forgetting to mask his reactions under a veneer of annoyance. “Rey came in without me?”

“Not the scavenger. Han Solo.”

“Haven’t heard of him.”

“The famous pianist? Surely you must have heard of him, what with you working as a music teacher.” The way Hux says music teacher suggests a correlation between the profession and the foulest of sewers. “Although I don’t know if we can qualify your dalliance with the girl as teaching, can we?”

Not even the promise of Rey’s gratitude upon returning home with fresh composition pages is worth this abuse. Kylo drops the ream, pushing past the manager and stalking towards the exit. He swears on everything holy that he’ll keep walking, won’t look back to hear more—and then Hux calls out, stopping him in his tracks.

“He bought thirteen of your books. All the ones we had in stock.”

“I don’t have any books.” His voice is flat, betraying none of the ice coursing through his veins. Hux knows. He knows, judging by the wicked glint to his stare.

Sure enough, Hux doesn’t drop it. “Don’t run from who you are.”

Slamming his fist against the lid of Hux’s beloved Starfighter display, Kylo bellows, “For your sake, shut your mouth.” The piano rattles under his assault and concern creeps into Hux’s smarmy grin.

As he beelines to check the damage inflicted by Kylo on his precious floor model, Hux fires a parting shot: “Does she know?”

Kylo slams the door to Music, First Order so hard the bell that jingles with every entrance and exit falls from the hinge. He can’t go home, not like this when Rey will arrive soon from a long day at work. So he sends a text telling her to let herself in, and nurses a caf at Holdo Cup until Kaydel kicks him out at closing time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buckle up, y'all! Next week gets a little bumpy. (But don't worry. All will be made right eventually.)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for another excellent prompt and happy Valentine's!


End file.
